Draven stumbled into his private study, the heavy oak doors slamming shut with a sound that felt like an indictment. His desk was a disaster of half-signed decrees and intelligence reports, but the ink seemed to blur before his eyes. He couldn't concentrate.
Every time he looked at the parchment, he saw the obsidian veil; every time he breathed, he smelled the faint, lingering scent of ozone and mountain lavender.
"A person's worth is in mind and heart... not in sweet words and empty smiles," Regina's voice echoed in the chambers of his mind, cold and precise.
The door creaked open, and the soft scent of jasmine drifted in. Eliosa approached him, her white robes glowing in the candlelight. She wore her most comforting expression—the one she usually saved for the commoners during a blessing.
"Draven, my love," she murmured, her voice dripping with sugar-coated concern. "The court session was taxing. That woman... she has a way of unsettling the spirits. Let me bring you some tea and help you find your peace."
Draven didn't look up. He could only hear the "sweet words" Regina had mocked. Suddenly, Eliosa's voice felt like cloying syrup—thick, sticky, and suffocating.
"I don't want to talk right now, Eliosa," Draven said, his voice dangerously low.
"But Draven, we must plan," she persisted, stepping closer and reaching for his hand. "The people are frightened of this 'Regina.' If we don't present a united front of the Light, her shadows will—"
"I said not now!" Draven snapped, his chair screeching against the marble as he stood up.
He looked at her—really looked at her—and for the first time, he saw the "empty smile" Regina had described. It wasn't a comfort; it was a mask. He brushed past her, his shoulder hitting hers as he stormed out of the room, leaving the Saintess standing in the silence of his rejection.
Furious and trembling with a rare, unpolished rage, Eliosa retreated to the Imperial Church. The grand cathedral was empty save for the flickering votive candles and High Priest Valerius, who was meticulously cleaning a silver thurible.
He looked up, sensing her agitation. "Saintess? You look as though the shadows have followed you even here. Is it the matter of the Sovereign?"
Eliosa opened her mouth to scream it all—to tell him that Regina was Iris, that the woman they had exiled was now a queen, and that Draven was falling apart because of it. But then, she remembered Draven's lethal warning. If the King found out the Prince had discarded the Empire's greatest power, Draven's crown was gone—and her future as Empress would vanish with it.
She swallowed her words, her throat tight. "It is nothing, Excellency. Only the weight of my duties."
Valerius didn't push her. He knew the Saintess was a creature of high emotions, though he usually attributed them to her "divine sensitivity." He reached into a carved wooden box and handed her an ancient, leather-bound book of scriptures.
"Knowledge is the best balm for a restless mind," he said gently. "Perhaps the words of the First Light will calm you."
Eliosa took the book. She didn't feel the "peace" the Priest intended. Instead, as she ran her fingers over the gold-leafed pages, her eyes turned sharp and cold. She wasn't looking for spiritual comfort; she was looking for weapons.
If I cannot expose her identity yet, Eliosa thought, her strategic mind whirring, I will become so indispensable to the faith that even a QueenofShadowscannot overshadow me. She began to read, not out of devotion, but out of a desperate need to sharpen her only remaining edge.